Close to Home
by ReidsFanGirl18
Summary: Someone is killing elderly women in a small town in NY, prompting the BAU to come to the aid of the local Sharif's department, but the case hits close to home for everyone when Reid's grandmother turns up as one of the victims. To find her killer the BAU will have to color outside the lines and uncover a tangled web of lies and loyalties. Can they stop him?
1. Chapter 1

Close to Home: Chapter 1: She's Gone

It was an unusually sweltering spring night in DC when Spencer Reid arrived home at his apartment. He sighed at the sight of the familiar green walls and built-in bookshelves. It was the end of a particularly long day.

It had been another long day of paperwork, catching up on the reports they had little time to complete while the cases were actually going on. Normally, he would've liked a good paper trail…he was just about the only one on the team who did. But all day he'd been restless, eager for something to happen…no…that wasn't right. It was more like some part of him, something deep within him that even he couldn't put words to, seemed to sense that something had already happened, and just wanted his conscious mind to wake up to that fact. That part of him waited, for what had seemed like an eternity, for the other shoe to drop so that there would be a name, and a description to put to this thing that had happened. It never had, but he felt…strangely on edge, like something, though he didn't know what, was somehow off, as if the universe had shifted. Something had changed in the aura of the world, if you believed in that stuff and he wasn't sure he did. Maybe he was just bored and exhausted… yeah …that had to be it. Doing paperwork for ten hours could be mind-numbing, especially when you had an IQ of 187 and had seen all this information previously. There was no intellectual stimulation in that, nothing for his overactive mind to sink its teeth into.

He shook his head, turned on the lights in the darkened living room, tossed his messenger bag on the couch and took a shower. It wasn't until he came out, having exchanged his work clothes for sweatpants and a T-shirt, that he noticed there were six new messages on his home answering machine.

He went to push the button to play them, but as he did this the phone rang again. He picked it up.

"Hello?" he said.

"Spencer…finally, I've been trying to get ahold of you all day…" said a familiar voice. It was Don, his grandmother's best friend and in many ways a surrogate for the grandfather he had never known.

"What is it? You never call just to catch up, and even if you did you wouldn't be this persistent…what's going on? Is Nana on her way here to 'surprise' me again?" He asked.

"No Spencer…" the old man replied, there was something there, a sadness…a lamenting in his voice that Reid was picking up on, and part of him understood then what had really prompted this phone call, though he wasn't prepared to face it until he heard Don say the words.

"I…I don't know that there is a good way to say this, so I'm just going to say it…she…she's gone Spencer…she's dead…."

The news hit him like a ton of bricks, and for a moment, Spencer couldn't breathe. He sunk into a chair. Nana had been the one dependable adult in his life growing up, in some ways she was more of a mother to him than her daughter was… now she was gone… He knew that Don would never lie to him about something like this…but it didn't seem possible. It wasn't quite real yet. Nana had been old, that was true, she'd been in her mid-eighties, but she hadn't ever seemed to lose any significant amount of energy or mobility. She had been the kind of person who looked, moved, and acted like someone fifteen to twenty years younger than their real age. So how had she died?

"W-when did this happen…?"

"Around seven am this morning, I went over to her place around eight-thirty to return a casserole dish and the front door was knocked halfway off its hinges. I found her inside."

"There were signs of forced entry?" he asked.

"Yes…and a struggle too… the living room and the foyer were all but destroyed. Spencer, I'm so sorry about all this, I know that this is a lot but I wanted to make sure you heard it from me before…"

"Before what?"

"You…may be getting another phone call about this…from a…different perspective… she's not the first one this has happened to. There have been others in the past couple of weeks… and Sharif Conwell has requested assistance from the Bureau. I can't say for sure whether or not it'll be your people of course but I wouldn't be surprised."

Don was right, even as they spoke, his cellphone vibrated with a text message from Garcia telling him to get back to the office ASAP. His mind raced, his heart hammered with charged and mixed emotions. He was caught between the shock and heartbreak at his grandmother's death, and the rising desire to hunt down and punish the unsub who had taken her from him.

But in all likelihood, his undeniable emotional involvement would have him taken off the case almost immediately, and if he didn't admit he knew one of the victims, it would only get him in more trouble since they were bound to look into her extended family as they worked on victimology and family notifications. It seemed the only logical option was to go back to work, explain in person and make his case for why he should be allowed on the case.

"Spencer…are you still there? Hello?"

"Don, I'll see you by morning probably, one way or another I'll be up there as soon as I can." Reid replied, then he hung up and got dressed, grabbed his go-bag, and left.

When he got to the BAU, he didn't say a word. After all, maybe the case had nothing to do with Nana and he could just tell Hotch what happened and attend her funeral. He sat down in the conference room like usual, though his hands were shaking and he was failing at trying to hide the fact that there was something wrong, he kept his head down because if he met a single one of the other six pairs of eyes, not only would they see the pain written all over his face but he was liable to break down completely.

Garcia stood up and took the remote. "Ok my family, tonight you are off to Mt. Bedford, it's a tiny outpost of a town in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. That's because, in the last two weeks, a town which doesn't have a single murder case on record has had five homicides. All of the victims were elderly women, aged seventy-five and older and they were all longtime residents." She clicked a button and the pictures of five women, including Nana, appeared on the screen. Reid's heart sank even further. "Meet Gloria Keen, Eleanor Matthews, Beatrice Waters, Maryanne Mallworth, and our most recent victim, Penelope McGee. Each of these women were found dead in their homes by friends or neighbors between eight and eleven o'clock in the morning and were killed between one and four hours before they were found."

"It says here that the COD on all of them was heart attack…" Morgan pointed out.

"Yeah but each heart attack was induced. I spoke to Dr. Donald Mallworth, that's Maryanne's son, who also happens to be the only medical doctor in town therefore the resident ME by default. He found hypodermic needle marks in the exact same spot behind the right ear of all the victims. That combined with obvious signs of forced entry, namely the fact that all their front doors were kicked in and he and Sharif have ruled out natural causes." Garcia explained.

"Do we know what they were injected with?" Hotch asked

"No Sir, it either doesn't register on a tox screen or metabolizes too quickly. Unfortunately neither of those bits of information does much to narrow down the field of possibilities."

"What about relatives? Did all the victims live alone?" Blake asked.

"All but the fourth victim, Maryanne Mallworth lived with her son because she had late-stage Alzheimer's and apparently wouldn't trust anyone else to help her. All the other victims had oodles of extended family but they're spread out all over the country."

That was when they all noticed that Reid, who normally would've postulated at least two or three different theories by now, was silent.

"Reid…anything to add?" Hotch asked

"Guys…I have a um…a confession to make…"

"What is it?" Morgan asked.

"I know one of the victims…Penelope McGee is…was…my grandmother…"

"What?" Morgan asked in surprise.

"You're kidding…" Hotch exclaimed. Reid just shook his head in response.

"Oh my God…" Garcia exclaimed. "Reid…I'm so sorry…" she told him, looking visibly upset.

"Is this the first you're hearing about this?" Hotch asked.

"No…Don, Dr. Mallworth is an old family friend, he called me almost as soon as I got home to tell me and I didn't listen to them but there were messages on my answering machine to suggest he's been trying to get ahold of me all day…" he replied.

"Taking all this into account…Reid…you can't be on this case…you're way too emotionally involved and far too close to this…"

"Hotch I understand that… but she was one of the most important people in the world to me. I need to help figure out who's doing this…I owe her that…" he argued. At the very least. He added to himself.

Hotch could tell that even if he did take Reid off the case, that wouldn't stop him from working it, there was a mix of emotions playing across his face, grief, anger, guilt, and underpinning all of it there was sense of determination. "Alright, but if I get even a hint that you're getting tunnel vision you're done. Are we clear?" he asked.

"Yes sir…" Reid replied.

"Then let's go end this. Wheels up in thirty minutes…"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Mount Bedford

_Rossi: "Honor widows who are widows indeed. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their elders; if anyone does not provide for his own, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." -1Timothy 5:3,4,8" _

Later on, when they were on the plane, the mood was strange. The personal nature of the case hung heavy in the air around them, weighing it down, but nobody would acknowledge it any further, and they avoided using Reid's grandmother's name any more than absolutely necessary.

"Let's start with the most recent victim…" Hotch suggested.

"What gets me is the door… I mean the police report says that she wouldn't usually have locked that door at night, but it was kicked in. If the door wasn't locked then the forced entry was unnecessary." Morgan pointed out.

"She probably started to after the killings started, when the earlier victim's deaths were deemed homicides." Reid suggested.

"But would she have known that?" JJ asked. The first four cases were kept out of the news…"

"In a town as small as Mt. Bedford, media attention is essentially redundant, everyone knows everyone and word travels even faster than something like this would make the evening news."

"Reid you know the town, and at least one of the victims better than anybody and that's going to be a huge help." Hotch told him.

"Well this unsub clearly wants his victims found sooner rather than later, he makes no effort to hide them or even to cover up the forced entry." Blake pointed out.

"Breaking down the front door is ballsy, he's either arrogant or he wants to get caught." Rossi added.

"I'm not so sure about that… The town is tiny but it's also spread out, that's particularly true of the residential areas, it's possible that no one would've seen or heard much if anything."

"So there probably won't be much in terms of witnesses…" Rossi commented.

"But the unsub still clearly wanted in the victims to be found. So how does he make sure of that?" Blake asked.

"The report says that the latest victim was discovered when her friend dropped by to return a casserole dish…" Morgan said.

"Yeah, that would be Dr. Mallworth, he said the same thing to me when I talked to him." Reid replied.

"I don't know when or why this kind of thing became an antiquated concept, but back in the day when you knew someone who either died or lost someone, you would make a casserole for the family…"

"Nana definitely would have done that when Mrs. Mallworth died."

"He was probably stalking her long enough to know that…and that sooner or later he'd bring the dish back. We should take a closer look at the discovery of the other victims and see if there's a pattern in there that will show us how he's targeting them. We should also check out the crime scenes to see if anything there helps us understand the psychopathology." Hotch told them. "When we land, Reid go to your grandmother's house, take Rossi with you, JJ interview the other families, Morgan go see the medical examiner, Blake and I will set up at the Sharif's station."

They all nodded, having been given their marching orders.

The jet landed at a small airport just outside of town and from there the team split up into three different SUVs.

Sharif Conwell was waiting when Hotch, Blake, and JJ arrived at the station. He was a short, wide, muscular man with short black hair and a mustache that reminded Blake of Teddy Roosevelt.

"Sharif Conwell?" Hotch asked.

"Yes sir." The Sharif replied.

"I'm Agent Hotchner, these are Agents Juneau and Blake."

"Thanks for coming… I've been with the department for twenty years…been Sharif for twelve of those, my father was Sharif before me…and I've never seen anything like this, this kind of thing just doesn't usually happen in these parts." He said. "The extended families are arriving by the hour and pretty soon I'll have close to a hundred people breathing down my neck, every one of 'em wanting answers and justice when I don't have either of those things to give them right now."

"Well now that we're here you at least have some help." Hotch replied reassuringly.

"What can you tell us about the overall character of the town?" JJ asked.

"This is a very close-knit, very conservative area…plenty of community events, everybody knows everybody, and many of the families here go back for generations. Neighbors help each other out, take care of their own so to speak, academics are important, most of the adults are heavily involved in the school system even if they don't have kids, church on Sunday, with most of the community events from charity drives to the town festival being run through the church. In a lot of ways it's like stepping back in time sixty to seventy years." He explained, they nodded.

Meanwhile, Morgan was at Dr. Mallworth's office. He was a small old man with graying brown hair, a weathered expression giving the impression that he'd seen too much, and small stormy gray eyes obscured behind thick antique bifocals.

"Dr.?"

"Yes…you are from the FBI I take it?" he asked in a raspy voice which carried with it a thick Scottish accent.

"Yeah, I'm Derek Morgan…"

"Pleased to meet you, though of course I wish it were under different circumstances. Please come in…" The Dr. offered, leading him into the least crowded morgue Morgan had ever seen. Inside, the bodies of several elderly women were lined up on slabs."

"These…Agent Morgan, are your victims. All killed in the exact same fashion and at almost the same time of day."

"Did you know them personally Doctor?"

"This is a small town, we all know each other…but the 4th victim, was my mother, and the fifth…was my best friend."

"I'm sorry…"

"Mother was…ready to go…so much of her was gone already and had been for some while; but Penny…had so much life left in her…it's all so very sad…"

"What can you tell me about who would have done this?"

"He's local…an outsider wouldn't be able to walk down Main Street in this town without being noticed, let alone murder five active pillars of the community. Also he's probably either over fifty years of age or disabled in some way."

"What makes you say that?"

"See these scratches and bruises?" He asked, lifting up one of Penny's arms.

"Defensive wounds…she put up a fight…"

"Indeed… and she's not the only one…they all did…even Mother. For them to be able to do that…his reflexes and or agility is limited, even in the picture of health, women of this age just don't move like twenty somethings or even thirty somethings."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Nana's House

Penny McGee had lived in a massive, almost mansion-like, old farmhouse on top of the hill that had been built by her own great-grandparents in the mid nineteenth century. It had passed through time, changing hands within the family from generation to generation, with few permanent changes aside from necessary repairs and updates since its construction.

Spencer hesitated, standing silently on the massive wooden porch where he had stood so many times before. He knew that he had to, but he didn't want to go inside, because going inside, seeing where she died…that would make it real. He was afraid to meet Rossi's eye, afraid that to let his teammate see just how much all this was getting to him, would get him kicked off the case. He couldn't let that happen because the only way he knew how to lessen the pain, was to help catch her killer.

But since it was Rossi, Reid's silence said even more than words could have.

"You know you don't have to do this right? You can let us handle it…"

"Actually I can't." he replied, then he took a deep breath and walked inside, Rossi followed.

Don had been right, the first two rooms had been destroyed. Granted, Nana had never been a neat freak per se… but on any other occasion, the cluttered mess of antique furnishings, nick knacks, family photos, and electronics from the eighties and nineties, still would have given the impression of organization, that despite the cluttered appearance of the arrangement, everything was in its proper place. This was just chaos.

The vase Reid's grandfather had brought back from China sixty years previously as an anniversary present, lay shattered on the living room floor with dried blood on some of the jagged edges, as though Nana had swung it at her attacker. The wooden floor had fresh scratches and scuff marks in it to suggest that this was indeed where the assault had taken place. Reid walked the perimeter of the room, taking in every detail, trying to form a more exact picture of what exactly had happened.

"So…what was she like…your grandmother?"

Reid thought about that for a second. "The best way I can describe her is as a woman of contradictions… she was gentle but strong, nurturing and yet firm… loving, but she was strict with us… you always hear how grandparents spoil the kids but… my cousins and I never got away with anything when she was around. Her punishments were inventive, not necessarily designed to fit the crime but to teach the exact principle in question… She never stayed mad at us for long no matter what we did, but her forgiving you wasn't going to get you a lighter sentence…"

"Sounds like a smart lady…"

"Yeah…." Reid replied, trailing off into his own thoughts as he stared at the grand piano in the living room, the book of sheet music that belonged to it lay open and tattered on the floor a few feet away.

"This scene is so chaotic that we may not be able to figure out exactly what happened…"

"Music…"

"What was that?" Rossi asked.

"Nana loved music, she would always play the same mixed tape of her favorite songs while she did housework… is there a tape in the stereo?"

"Yeah…" Rossi said, opening the tape player on the old stereo.

"Push play… Nana had the same routine every morning, we can tell what she was doing by what song the tape is on…"

Rossi obeyed, and Spencer listened intently as a familiar tune began to play.

_"Dance then…wherever you may be, for I am the Lord of the Dance said He! And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, and I'll lead you all in the dance said He!" _

"Lord of the Dance, which means…she was making breakfast…" Reid observed, stalking off to the kitchen.

Rossi followed and opened a pan on the stove to reveal unfinished sausage gravy.

"Looks like she was planning on biscuits…."

"Yeah… hers were the best…" He replied, walking back into the living room.

"What's up?" Rossi asked, following him.

Reid just shook his head. "I…I need a minute…"

"Take it…I understand…"

"I'm alright…" Reid told him unconvincingly.

Rossi could see his friend's hands shaking in grief and rage. He took a quick glance around the room at the off-white walls covered in three generations of family photos, children's and grandchildren's school photos from kindergarten through graduation and group shots for each year marked the long passage of time. Clearly family had meant the world to this woman.

His eyes moved back to Reid, who was trying and failing to hide the fact that he was on the edge of tears.

"No you're not…and no one expects you to be…"

"But if I'm not…then I can't help find out who did this…"

"Maybe not in the usual way, but you still knew her better than we do, you knew her as a living person, her behavior, her personality… that's something that's hard to gather just from the material possessions' she left behind…"

"She was right…" Reid whispered sadly.

"Right about what?" Rossi asked.

"Every time I'd come up here for the last ten years or so…which wasn't nearly often enough, she'd get on my case about…how important family is and how, one day she wasn't going to be here…now she's gone and the last time I saw her alive…was almost a year ago." He replied, crying silently.

"Then let's find out who killed her." Rossi said, putting a hand on Reid's shoulder. "She was making breakfast…"

"The doorbell rings…"

"And she goes to the door…but she doesn't let him in, she backs away from the door?"

"She has to because otherwise the struggle wouldn't have spread to the living room…" Spencer added.

"So she lets this guy further into the house than she wants to…and then he pulls a needle on her, she struggles but he manages to inject her anyway and then leaves her to die…the question is…who was he?"

"There really wasn't much in the way of forensic evidence…"

"I hate to ask this, but did she have any enemies…?" Rossi asked.

"No…"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Dwight

A few hours after the BAU had arrived in town, they came back together at the Sharif's station to share what they had learned. They sat around a U shaped grouping of rectangular tables facing a long set of dry erase boards with all the evidence and crime scene photos so far.

"So we have a case with five victims, none of whom had any clear enemies, killed by someone who left no forensic evidence behind."

"Other than being killed by the same offender, what else do the victims have in common?" JJ asked.

"They were all elderly women…" Morgan replied.

"They all lived the vast majority of their lives in this town…" Blake added.

"They were all mothers, and all of them except for Mrs. Mallworth were also grandmothers." Rossi added. "When Reid and I went over to Mrs. McGee's house, there were family photos almost covering the walls, maybe the Unsub is keying in on how important family is to these women. That could be what sparks his rage."

"If that's the case then we all know the odds there…the victims are probably surrogates for a mother or grandmother who abused him or wronged him in some severe way." Blake commented.

They called Garcia.

"Office of the information fairy how may I help you?"

"Garcia we think the victims maybe surrogates for someone who abused this Unsub… we need you to compile a list of men from the area between twenty-five and sixty who have any of the usual indicators of abuse or neglect, questionable medical histories, sealed juvenile records, poor grades, they might have even grown up in foster-care or an orphanage or been placed with extended family." Hotch told her.

They could hear her typing away at her keyboard.

"That gets us forty names sir and the vast majority aren't local anymore…only one of these people lives in Mt. Bedford now…"

"Who is it Garcia?"

"Martin Dwight…age fifty-eight, grew up in Mt. Bedford. Yikes, his teachers even noted that they thought he was being abused, and when he grew up he left town for our very own Quantico Virginia, where he got married, became a wife-beating scum bag, was accused of spousal abuse six times, and raised two sons. They aren't local to the area but it looks like they got into heaps of trouble. Their Juvy records are sealed but they appear to be pretty extensive… I see a lot of charges against them, but until I unseal the files I can't see exactly what any of them are…"

"That's not a surprise…." Reid commented.

"You know this guy Reid?" Morgan asked.

"No, not him…but I grew up with his sons, they'd come up here to visit their grandparents at the same time my cousins and I would come visit Nana, and the Dwight brothers did everything they could to make our lives, especially mine, miserable…." He replied

"What have you got on the sons Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"Starting with the oldest… meet Jackson Dwight, age thirty-nine… he was a real peace of work, kicked out of elementary school and was sent to military school until 7th grade for anger management issues, the highlight of which was that he tried to stab his gym teacher's eye out with a pencil…numerous citations for bullying, he never maintained anything higher than a C average and yet apparently had an IQ of 195… and get this, he never graduated high school, he was sentenced to Juvenile Detention at the age of seventeen and served four more years in jail starting on his eighteenth birthday for assaulting a minor over the summer between his junior and senior years."

"Guys, Jackson doesn't fit the profile." Reid told them.

"How can you be sure?" Rossi asked.

"Jackson Dwight is a vindictive narcissist prone to cruelty and violence but that's just it… this Unsub's MO doesn't match Jackson's psychopathology at all. These crimes were hands off, non-violent, non-sexual, Jackson would've violated the victims and probably beaten them to death… a potentially natural death being chemically induced isn't his type of methodology."

"What about his younger brother Garcia?"

"His brother Jason, is about the same age as Reid, again we have poor grades…he was never kicked out of school…but he had quite the long disciplinary record and it would appear that he was removed from his father's custody and placed in foster-care when he was twelve for obvious neglect and physical abuse, and that's when things for him go from bad to worse… He dropped out of school early in his junior year, seemed to be in trouble with the law almost every other month, mostly for petty theft of things like food, candy, and beer, I'm also seeing scads of assault charges for fist fights which he pretty much always lost, domestic disturbances, drug possession, and a bunch of underage drinking and DUI charges…he actually has more on his record than his brother but his history doesn't seem to be nearly as violent."

"He fits better except…if it were Jason doing this you'd think that he'd take out his anger and frustration on men and closer in age to his father…"

"Jason was in foster-care though, and depending what kind of home he was in, the core of his rage might not be his father at all…he could be his foster-mother…" JJ pointed out.

"Garcia gather everything you can find about both Dwight Brothers and then see if either of them have an alibi for the killings…" Rossi ordered.

"That might take me a little while but I'll hit you back when I have something." She said before hanging up.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Memoirs of Penny

October 14th 1981

Penny McGee and her husband Franklin had just arrived home from a trip to Las Vegas where they had witnessed the birth and met their now six day-old grandson, Spencer. The past nine months had not been easy on their daughter Dianna, she was schizophrenic, as was her father, and had gone off her medication for the sake of her child. Her own mother had been the only one she had allowed to get close enough to help. In some ways it had been a nightmare, but it was over now and she nor Dianna would take a second of it back for anything in the world. Not now that Spencer was here.

Franklin had been distant ever since they'd left from the airport in Vegas, he was too quiet and it worried her. So she climbed up the ladder toward the attic where he did his research as a privately contracted scientist for the navy.

"Frank…? Honey? Are you up here?" she called, but there was no response, actually there was no noise at all beyond a solitary and unfamiliar creaking sound.

She tried to open the door but even though it wasn't locked, it still wouldn't open. When she did manage to open it a crack, she saw that there was a chair pushed in front of it which apparently had been brought up from the dining room. "Well what the devil?" She swore, pushing harder until at last the chair fell over to the side out of the way and she was able to enter the room. When she did, her jaw dropped in horror, her husband was hanging dead in a noose tied over an overhead beam, and her stomach lurched as she realized the source of the creaking sound was the rope at it swung back and forth slightly, with Franklin's feet dangling only about two feet off the ground.

"Lord have Mercy…" she said, making the sign of the cross. Then she saw it, a note scribbled in his handwriting, explaining what she saw before her now, she picked it up and read:

My dearest Penny, if you are reading this, then I have left this world, and you deserve to know why. Right now I'd imagine that you're bewildered, frightened, angry…and I'm truly sorry for that. Even after the voices began to invade my mind, even after I learned why they were there and there was little I could do to free myself from them, I still never imagined writing this letter. But you must imagine the guilt I felt when I learned that I had passed on my mental curse to our beloved daughter. If you should catch her in a moment where you find her of sound mind please tell her also how sorry I am for everything. It's my fault and you both deserved better. You deserved a husband who could be your rock, not the other way around. She deserved a father capable of being there for her, to light up the dark, not cast her into it and damn her to a life of hardship.

As for why it must all end here, the answer is as simple as it is complicated…I am weak. It was bad enough when the psychologist told us that I was likely the source of Dianna's suffering. Imagine the guilt I felt when we greeted that beautiful child, so tiny, so trusting, so full of potential… but all I could think about was whether or not I have ruined his life as well. I know what I have now done has hurt you, but I simply could not bear the weight of that guilt any longer. You have stood by me, supported me, fought for me, at times you protected me from myself. Despite my disease you have always given me wings to fly and I've loved you for it. So this is Goodbye, Penny my dearest friend, my light, my love, my heart and my song, please do not share this letter with Dianna or Spencer, this is not their fault and I should think that I would roll in my grave if they ever thought so, they, you, Megan, the twins, Junior, and Timothy, need only understand that I love you all so very much. I'm sorry.

By the time she finished reading it, she could barely see through her own tears and her hands shaking, she called 911 to report her husband's suicide.

June 6th 1987

The school year had ended and Penny now had her four grandsons all to herself for the summer. She was looking through all their yearbooks trying to get a sense of their lives since she had seen them last at Christmas, but one of them, Spencer, who had spent the school year in second grade instead of kindergarten, was holding back, apparently not wanting her to look at his.

"Spencer, honey… can I see your yearbook?" she asked.

The little boy shook his head. He stood there hugging it defensively, gripping onto it hard as though his life depended on keeping it from her.

"Spencer…let me see…" she ordered, giving him a look that allowed no refusal from a timid five year-old boy. He walked over to her and handed in over.

As soon as she opened it, she realized why he hadn't wanted her to see it. There wasn't a single signature from any of the other children, not one classmate…only teachers…

"Spencer…you didn't want any of your classmates to sign it?"

"I tried but they all hate me…I don't have any friends…" he admitted sadly.

"I don't understand how that could be…" she said.

"You're my Nana, you're supposed to love me. All the kids in my class are two or three years older than me. They only bother to talk to me at all when they get a chance to trip me or kick sand or pebbles in my face…." He explained, his large brown eyes pleaded with not to continue this conversation any further.

She looked back at him sympathetically, took each of his small hands in hers and pulled him directly in front of the low-riding sofa where she sat, so that he was facing her directly and at his own eye-level.

"Spencer listen to me. Those kids in your class who were mean to you…they're trolls and they're missing out. They're just jealous and mean and petty. I look at you and I see a wonderful little person who's going to do amazing things. Don't you _ever _let the likes of them convince you to be less than who you are. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said…"

"Who's Eleanor Roosevelt?" he interrupted

"Her husband was our president before you were born… anyway, she said once, that nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. So please Spencer, I know it's hard, but don't give it. Do you understand?" she asked.

The little boy nodded.

July 4th 1992

The weather was perfect, there wasn't a cloud in the sky but there was a nice breeze that made eighty degrees feel like seventy, especially in the shade of the willows and sycamores that dotted Penelope McGee's four acres of land.

It was a lazy afternoon and the now ten year-old Spencer found himself reading under a two-hundred year-old sycamore, with a pile of books on each side of him. One pile was for the books he had already finished and the other was for the books he hadn't gotten to yet.

But he hadn't been there more than thirty minutes when suddenly the area around him got dark. He looked up to see a boy who was several years older and at least twice his size standing in front of him.

"Whatchya reading there ya little freak?" The boy asked mockingly.

"Hello Jack…"

"You're a little freak, you know that Reid?" Jack taunted, taking the book right out of Spencer's hands. "I mean what kind of ten year old reads _To Kill a Mockingbird _anyway?"

"I do…"

"It's not normal." Jack replied sharply.

"Yeah it ain't normal!" Jacks brother, Jason, chimed in as he came up on the side.

"So what?" Spencer asked.

"I bet yer not as smart as they're sayin anyway… in fact yer so dumb… you probly think that three times four is twelve…" Jason teased

"Um…three times four is twelve…" Spencer corrected.

"Yeah, three times four is twelve ya dumbass!" Jack yelled, elbowing his brother in the ribs. "Anyway, the world isn't always so kind to folks who aren't normal…so today I'm gonna give you a lesson in what the future holds and give my brother here a birthday present at the same time." Jack explained, cracking his knuckles.

Spencer's eyes widened as the older boy grabbed him, tied him by his wrists with his arms over his head and hoisted the younger boy above the ground, hanging him from a tree branch. Then he put a blindfold on Jason, turned him around three times and handed him a baseball bat.

From there, the boys took turns using Spencer for a human piñata. The game went on for over an hour until Nana, having noticed that Spencer hadn't come back inside for lunch, came running to break it up.

"You little PIGS! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size? Did nobody ever teach you any manners? Your granddad's gonna hear about this!"

She chased the Dwight brothers away, promising to tell their grandparents what had transpired.

She cut Spencer out of the tree with gardening sheers, caught him in her arms and carried him back to the house.


End file.
